Top 10 of 2007

I made a list. Then I whittled it down to a second list. Now I'm presenting you the third. It was tough. It was a spectacular year for movies, and I only saw and reviewed 50 of 'em in the last year. A whopping 22 received grades in the A range (surely I sign that I am going soft?). Here's the cream of that crop:

1. Once
2. No Country for Old Men
3. There Will Be Blood
4. Zodiac
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
   
6. Gone Baby Gone
7. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
   
8. This is England
9. Hot Fuzz
10. Grindhouse (theatre version only, which is why . . . )
    
11. Tie: Persepolis and Ratatouille

Okay, so that's technically 13 movies. I've got Grindhouse on there as a whole that is greater than any one of its parts (not that those parts aren't awesome), but I had to go to 11 because Grindhouse, as I knew it, has ceased to exist. You are really missing out, by the way, if you have picked up either feature on DVD on its own on if only because you'll never know what I'm talking about when I menacingly intone, "He's saving up his nickles and dimes . . .". As for the double count for 11, I reviewed the two together, and I don't want to pick between them. So I didn't. Ten's a nice round number that everyone can count to, but it's not always the best number to go with.

As for the rest of it, what a romantic, depressing, funny, crazy, beautiful year. Oh, and a little happy birthday shout out to Feria Films, who turned four last month. It's going to start asking 4000 questions a day, I just know it.

Oscar Wrap Up (2008)

Well, I got a lot of those wrong.

Good for me, though. Good for you.

Good for the Coens even if I didn't think a sweep was forthcoming. I sincerely hope their little corner of the sandbox has room for all those statues. Good for the Academy for rewarding a critically beloved picture instead of a middling one.

Good for she who would call herself Diablo for giving a short, sweet, touching speech in a Betty Page inspired outfit.

Good for the insanely dreamy Javier Bardem busting out the Spanish.

Good for Marion Cotillard for struggling valiantly to deliver her speech in English, for being so genuinely surprised, and for being genuinely happy when Lavergne and Archibald won for makeup.

Good for The Bourne Ultimatum for picking up so many technical awards. People like it, critics like it, why shouldn't the Academy?

Good for Swinton for not only being herself but for giving a delightfully off centre speech.

Good for Daniel Day-Lewis' speech, so strange and smart. If your acceptance speech isn't the moment to refer to your picture as a golden sapling springing forth from Paul Thomas Anderson's head, when is it? And that he wished he had his son, H.W. Plainview with him? Made it seem like even if he was a lock, he still had the good grace to feel awed.

Boo on Rebecca Miller's dress. She's an attractive lady, so I don't understand why she would do that to herself.

Boo on Colin Farrell's hair.

Boo on the lack of screen time for my dear Jon. I'd rather see him, even slightly stiff as he was, than any of those "reflecting on my win" montages. Unless, of course, they could rustle up some more footage of Jack Lemmon. He's great at everything (even beyond the grave).

Boo on having Miley Cyrus say "awesome" during her presentation just because she's young.

Boo on whatever was happening to the bust of a variety of normally good looking women, like Jessica Alba's purple feathers or Anne Hathaway's garland or Jennifer Garner's squashy pancake boob.

Boo on Gil Cates, who hates Amy Adams for some reason, and on Bill Conti, who hates any one who didn't win an acting award. I want to hear what those who made shorts or editing decisions have to say, damn it!

And finally, may the prize of the best part of the whole shebang go to Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. Their song was truly the best, their speeches about hope inspiring, and the moment when Jon brought Markéta back out* the most tear worthy.

*We all secretly believe that this was his idea, right? Right.

Stayed tuned tomorrow for the greatest of all post-Oscar events: my top 10.

Oscar Round Up (2008)

To review the rules, click the label and read the original Oscar Round Up post.

Forgotten who's nominated? Here's your hook up.

Last year I was once again stuck at a rate of 5/6, but I am learning to live with it. It's a good ratio if you think about it. This was, as it turns out, a spectacular year for movies, and it's even more exciting to see that a lot of deserving movies are up for Academy Awards this year. Let's move on to the predictions then, shall we?

Performance by an actor in a leading role

George Clooney in Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

This has got to be one of the saddest line ups I've seen in years. Not because the performances are poor. They're are each individually astonishing. It's sad that they all have to go up against each other at the same time knowing only one will win it, especially given that who will win is a virtual lock. It's a pity really. I'd like to see what, say, Mortensen or Depp would say given the opportunity.

Who will win: Day-Lewis.

Who should win: The far recesses of my brain just spat out Steven Buscemi for Interview, if you can imagine, although I'd add Glen Hansard for Once to that list. Choosing amidst the list, it would really have to go to Depp. He sings and slashes throats. What more does the Academy want from him?

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton

My, how offensive this category is right off the bat. He's the fucking lead in that movie. His character's name is in the title for pete's sake! Again, this is a sad line up for the reasons stated above. If Holbrook picks up the statue, it will be one of those lifetime-achievement-in-disguise awards, to which I am historically not opposed. If any of them won, really, I don't think I could find a reason to argue. Even so, I'm going to go with . . .

Who will win: Bardem.

Who should win: Affleck, for lead actor. For reals.

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie in Away from Her
Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney in The Savages
Ellen Page in Juno

Damn it, why did they have to go and make the men's categories so easy to call and the women's so tough? Let's drop Blanchett for her unappealing turn in an unappealing movie, and Linney for no other reason than the fact that is just seems so unlikely. That leaves us with Page (a relative newcomer, which Oscar has traditionally favoured in this category), Cotillard (a young French stunner), and Chirstie (stirring performance in a thoroughly depressing movie). Page is the odds on favourite, although I'd say that the real grudge match is between Cotillard and Christie. Tricky.

Who will win: Christie.
Who should win: Wei Tang for Lust, Caution, Emily Mortimer for Lars and the Real Girl, Markéta Irglová for Once.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There
Ruby Dee in American Gangster

Saoirse Ronan in Atonement

Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton

Let's save ourselves some time and admit that it seems to be down to Blanchett and Dee. One of them didn't have a lot of screentime but has a lifetime of work worth rewarding (à la Holbrook) and the other was a knockout in the midst of several deserving performances. She's the very centre of a movie that would seem to have no centre without her. Plus the Academy has a crush on her in a big way. Even so . . .

Who will win: Dee (?). This one's gonna be close. I wish we could see the numbers on it after the envelope is opened.
Who should win: Blanchett. Who am I to deny it?

Achievement in directing / Best motion picture of the year

Directing:

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel
Juno, Jason Reitman
Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy
No Country for Old Men, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson

Picture:
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood

There's no better way to handicap one than to invoke the other. A given movie won't necessarily bring home the pair, but it will almost never bring home the big one without at least a director nod.

That said, we can eliminate . . . Atonement. Aw, crap. I didn't think Atonement would win in the first place. Now I am going to have to think about this. Clayton was smart and twisty, and, while everyone likes it, no one seems to love it. If Juno goes home with the prize, it would be the result of No Country and Blood splitting the dark, decaying America vote. I hope it doesn't. Both of the last two films are masterworks bound to resonate for years to come. I may have given them different grades, but I'm not sure one truly is better than the other. They're both outstanding examples of why filmmaking can be vital. They are both nominated for picture, director, and adapted screenplay. It's simply a question of whether there will be a sweep or whether someone will be going home with a consolation prize.

Who will win: Schnabel / No Country for Old Men.
Who should win: I'd be more than pleased to see either of the last two take Oscar home in both cases. Otherwise, stay tuned next week for my Top 10 of 2007.

What a fantastic year for film. I could be wrong about many of these. They're all so hard to call, and I love the Academy for getting that much right. Let's see what fun Jon has in for us come Sunday night.

Persepolis (2007)

Premise: A young girl, Marjane (Gabrielle Lopes as a child and Chiara Mastroianni as a teen and adult), lives through the Islamic revolution in Iran, finding quiet moments to be true revolutionaries with her politically active parents (Catherine Deneuve and Simon Abkarian), her grandmother (Danielle Darieux), and her influential uncle (François Jerosme).

This is an astonishing picture. It takes a time into which we have little insight on the individual level, focuses it through the lens of a precocious child, and refuses to make a big deal out of everything. It's not that there aren't big deals in the movie. There are plenty of them. But it's filled quiet with moments that the movie allows to resonate in ways I don't think it would have if it had been a live action feature. There's an excellent sense of when to linger and when to move on to the next. Most importantly, in her co-written and co-directed film based on her autobiographical graphic novel, Marjane Satrapi doesn't spare herself.

It's that insight into herself, her willingness to show times when she did mean things and times when she did stupid things, that makes this picture, co-written and co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud, so poignant. It's easier to believe someone who doesn't give herself a free pass. And, as such, she gives us wonderful insight into the real dangers of neither assimilating into a monolithic culture nor outwardly rebelling.

I feel like I am being vague about this film, and I don't mean to be. I'm reluctant to spoil even one minute of the gorgeous black and white frames for you. There is something so beautiful and interconnected about this film that I'm not sure we can talk about it until you see it for yourself. Until then, A+.

While I've got you here, I should mention that I also saw another of last year's fantastic animated features: Ratatouille. Oh, how sweet, how funny, how sumptiously wonderful. It really does deserve to be one of the best reviewed movies of the year and one of the biggest commercial successes. I'm at a loss to tell you if I think the moment when a drunk Linguini complains that ratatouille sounds like rat patootie or if the entirety of Peter O'Toole's performance as restuarant critic Anton Ego is the most hilarious bit. Suffice it to say that this movie is charming, clever, and inspiring. Everyone should see it. A+

Lust, Caution (2007)

Brief: A group of drama students led by Kuang (Lee-Hom Wang) decide to carry their work further by infiltrating the life of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), a high up member of the Chinese collaborative government in WWII, setting up Wong Chai Chi (Wei Tang) as his mistress, and plotting his assassination. As the plot takes longer than original intended, Wong's life (and her heart) are increasingly in danger.

The buzz on this one wasn't all that positive, but I was looking forward to seeing it anyway. If there's a team out there today that I can get behind, it's director* Ang Lee and co-writers/frequent collaborators James Schamus and Hui-Ling Wang. No matter the story they are telling, whether it's suburban subterfuge or a Civil War epic or a damn comic book adaptation, their combined ability to tap into the human emotion at the core of these stories, to explore its grand range, and to make that range seem like the most epic, operatic thing that has ever occurred is unparalleled. It's both a call to action and a call for self-reflection.

To that end, this movie is no exception. The acting is beautiful and nimble with Wai balancing menace with undernotes of sexiness and sorrow, and Wang taking Kuang from a passionate but sheepish boy to a far more measured adult. Despite all that, it's (possible**) newcomer Tang that will steal your heart. Her naïve dedication flowers into heartbreaking devotion and shatters into divided loyalties. And she does it all with her soft, dancing eyes.

So it's too bad that when the closing credits started to roll I said, "Well, that sucked." It didn't entirely suck. All the things I wrote above remain true. There are two reasons that this movie didn't make it as far as it needed to: 1) the sex scenes and 2) the decision at the climax that leads to the dénoument. As for the former, they're not indifferently filmed, nor is the sex treated as reverentially as it was in Brokeback Mountain. It's just not sexy. There's a lot of sex, and it's supposed to have a profound effect on the two characters having it over the course of the film. You can sort of see it for the one, but it never really comes through for the other, which is what makes the former hard to swallow.

Well, partially. It's not difficult to believe or understand why these two people end up caring about each other. It's that the decision she makes ends up affecting so many other people, and you know she knows exactly what will happen, and she does it anyway. But why? We never get to the heart of that decision, of why she makes it and what that means for the character. It just happens and then pow! Story done. The door closes, and we're left out. B-

*It's the Tim Burton thing all over again, isn't it? Hey, did you guys know that Ang Lee is a director?

**IMDb lists this movie as her only credit, but they aren't always as up-to-date on foreign productions.

Change moves in spirals, not circles. For example, the sun goes up and then it goes down. But everytime that happens, what do you get?

Which, of course, explains why we haven't seen a "change" in romantic movies in about, oh, ever. For more of my romantic movie-related loathing, the circle of lies on which said movies are based, and a breakdown of the Feb premieres, check out my latest Culture article.

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

Outline: In the early 1980s, Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a US congressional representative from Texas seemingly more devoted to having a good time than to politics. He is also a member of two major foreign policy and covert-ops committees. Prodded by his major conservative supporter, Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), Wilson learns about the plight of the people are suffering in the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. With the help of a CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Wilson dedicates himself to supplying of Afghan mujahideen with the weapons and support necessary to defeat the Soviet Union.

If this movie had a subtitle, it would be, "Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams should star in everything." This is Hoffman's magic: even though he's a much better actor than everyone else involved (I'm not saying that lightly nor to be flippant) and even though he was clearly playing the character Toby would have been had Sorkin had been free to include as much swearing as he pleased on network television, he still creates a believable, enjoyable, full-fleshed human being. Then he goes ahead a quietly pockets his scene with Roberts without even looking like he's going to. It's like it just happens to him. The smartest guy in the room is too angry to be listened to, and he finally gets the ear of the very people who can help him make a difference, and he doesn't even take a moment to consider his good fortune.

Roberts gets swallowed up by her accents, which is a shame (!) because there are non-verbal moments when it was clear how good a job she was doing in the roll. Hanks is great, but he's been better, as though some of the vivacity has been drained from what should have been a larger than life character. Adams, on the other hand, has a small part and makes me wish I could see her sparkling, expressive face wherever I go (movie-wise, of course).

Director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin have a pretty good thing going here. It's smart and funny and sometimes even sexy, which is a great way to present a story every American (at least) should know. But the early violence looks surprisingly fake, and it's hard to know who to cheer for when you've living through the long-term consequences. The movie pays lip service to Charlie and Gust's attempts to head the Taliban off at the pass, but it's all over in an instant. It seems like another movie is poised to begin where this one abruptly leaves off, and the sequel is more vital than what came before it. Still, this is pretty good. B+